Actually, McCain didn’t quite say that, but what he did say is just as laughable. The problem is that far too many people will believe him simply because of the failure of American media to report accurately and objectively about conditions in Iraq. Here’s what St. Straight Shooter said today to the Veterans of Foreign Wars:
Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, McCain criticized Obama and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and insisted that last year’s U.S. troop buildup in Iraq brought a glimmer of “something approaching normal” there, despite a recent outbreak of heavy fighting and a U.S. death toll that has surpassed 4,000.
“I do not believe that anyone should make promises as a candidate for president that they cannot keep if elected,” McCain told the crowd.
“To promise a withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, regardless of the calamitous consequences to the Iraqi people, our most vital interests, and the future of the Middle East, is the height of irresponsibility,” he said. “It is a failure of leadership.”
No Johnny, the failure of leadership is to keep poring lives and money into a human catastrophe for which most of the people who live there blame us, as in the United States of America. We cannot be the solution to the problem we created, one which we continue to exacerbate. Furthermore, no one trusts us to be an honest broker. Just ask the Kurds. But go ahead Johnny. Just keep tying yourself ever tighter to the bow of the good ship USS Iraq Forever.
Because sooner or later the Democrats are going to stop their internecine fighting, and the focus will be on you and your message. And trust me, the vast number of Americans want to hear about how we leave Iraq, not why we should stay there for 5, 10, 20, 50 years. As our economy worsens, as more people lose their health insurance after ever more employers layoff more of their employees, as more young adults rightly fear the return of the Draft in response to your policy of eternal (and possibly extended) war in the Middle East, the truth will out. Iraq was a mistake that is killing our country’s future even as it literally kills the lives of Iraqis and Americans every day.
So keep up with the cheer leading. Indeed, to borrow a phrase, bring it on.
